


I Know You Will

by shakespearespaz



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Then fluff, Then more angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-11 13:01:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1173377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakespearespaz/pseuds/shakespearespaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miles and Rachel don't end after the airport scene; instead they fess up to their feelings and stare down a future together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Know You Will

She was waiting by the curb near the arrivals when he returned, like she said she would. Rosy lips chapped in the dry cold, she stood small in her oversized winter coat, the same clear blue eyes staring at him as he and Bass lugged their duffels through the sliding doors.

The next move was his, she seemed to say.

“God, look, a woman!” Bass joked to Miles. He brushed past his friend to gather Rachel in his arms first. “How are you, Rache?”

Her lips spread into her tight smile. “Overworked, ostracized.” She paused and hugged him again. “But well.”

Miles finally remembered how to walk. He didn’t speak but wove his hand into her gloved fingers, pulling her in and holding her tightly.

She had waited.

They’d been gone seven long months, stuck in the dry heat with little correspondence but a hasty phone call and a distant, cold letter from Ben. She and Ben had lasted a few weeks after he left, he had learned from his mother. Until Rachel had declared that she loved the younger brother instead and promptly disappeared into a rainy Chicago night.

Miles felt like an idiot as he stood with her in his arms, his clumsy self loved but inept. She looked miserable, and he knew that he should feel overjoyed that she had chosen him, but she had sacrificed everything. She and Ben had been planning to start a company together—Ben’s calm, neat handwriting had clearly demonstrated to him that was no longer an option.

And there was her family. He thought of the disdain creased in her father’s brow at the sight of him when their families had celebrated the Fourth of July together two years before. 

“How did you parents take it?” he muttered into her hair.

She withdrew from the hug, but kept his hand strangled in hers.

“Not now, Miles,” she stopped him. Miles heard the strain in the back of her throat and he didn’t push it. The last thing he wanted to do was make her cry. Not that Bass was the issue, for he’d seen both of them lose it and had been with Miles through far worse. But he and Rachel teetered on a precipice of emotional instability, from traveling exhaustion to anxious anticipation, and the right moment to lose it would be where they could cling to each other in private and refuse to let go for a long while. That place was not here.

Instead, Rachel beamed at both of them, the edges of her eyes wrinkling in sincerity.

“I’m just—I’m happy you’re home.”

She pivoted to the car, nodding at it and Miles found himself mesmerized by the blonde curl that escaped her bun and fell into her face. Some things hadn’t changed.

“You guys hungry?” she asked.

Bass seemed glad that the tension had lessened a bit and grinned back at her.

“Starved! Weird packets of pretzel things with cheese dust are hardly dinner—” he continued talking at them as he scooped up Miles’ bag and dragged it around to the trunk with him.

Rachel gave Miles one more nod before finally releasing his hand.

\--

Miles dipped a mediocre fry into his chocolate shake. Rachel sat next to him, her foot hooked around his ankle and her warm, bony shoulder attempting to occupy the same space as his.  Bass sat across from them, joyously part of the way through his second hamburger.

His eyes met with Miles’ across the table and he shot his friend an unreadable look, to which Miles responded silently. While he and Bass remained locked in an interesting eyebrow dance, Miles felt the fry leave him fingers.

He turned to find Rachel shoving it impishly into her mouth. She chewed slowly and then swallowed, her wide eyes staring straight at him in mock innocence.

“Cliché, Rachel,” Bass chastised her from across the table.

“You have your own shake and fries!” Miles protested.

“They taste better with chocolate,” she responded.

“Well, maybe you should have gotten a chocolate shake.” He picked up her cup and took a sip, promptly making a face of disgust. “Instead of vanilla. Who orders vanilla?”

“Your girlfriend,” she replied, “does.”

She hesitated after the word, and Miles understood. It was clunky coming from her salty lips, ill-fitting for whatever they were. They had not been anything before, anything except illicit. In some ways they still were nothing, not while Rachel’s conversations with her parents ended in shouting and Miles was too cowardly to call Ben.  

Bass noticed the two beginning the descent into introverted, consuming silence.

“How’s the research, Rachel?”

Her genuine smile returned.

“Good, good. I’m actually thinking about a new project. I think it might be good to get away from Ben. As a research partner, I mean.”

Miles watched her pick up another fry and dunk it into her shake.

“Do you miss him?” he asked her without considering whether or not he would want to hear the answer.

Rachel swirled the thick, frosty mixture around with the fry in thought.

“I miss his brain,” she finally replied.

“You implying that I’m stupid?” She recognized the teasing tone from Miles immediately, but that did not stop her from feeling like she needed to take drastic action.

“Only for not liking vanilla!” she exclaimed sternly, before shoving the coated fry towards his mouth.

A wave of illogical euphoria washed over Miles as he attempted to stop the incoming fry, succeeding only in smearing white stuff all over his face, Rachel’s rare giggles turning the heads of several other customers.

The past months had had their own choice lighthearted moments, but there was a sobriety that coated everything along with the dust while they on a tour, an alertness that never quite left. He felt that consuming fear begin to lift.

The world felt safer with her next to him, slim hands fussing with his, and Bass chuckling at him across the table.

He managed to regain control of the fry, accidentally flinging it at Bass, who ducked. Rachel made a paltry attempt to control her laughter and occasional unladylike snorts. Miles grabbed a napkin and wiped his face eagerly, though with the other two grinning, it was impossible to stop the corners of his mouth from creeping upward.

Miles snuck his arm around Rachel’s waist and she partially gave in, twisting to bury her contorted and shaking face in his shoulder. She could almost be crying instead of laughing a part of his brain told him, before the warmth began to spread.

The feeling was unadulterated happiness, he realized, with his best friend content and close and the woman he loved snickering unashamedly at him into his shirt.

\--

Miles listened for the sound of the facet squeaking off. Rachel had offered them her small apartment, since neither had anywhere else to stay in the city for the night. Bass was set up on the couch, while Rachel had decided for Miles that he would be sleeping with her, and he was not about to argue.

He listened to her in the bathroom from the comfort of her bed, which was freshly laundered and felt like a crisp and clean cloud after hours of cramped airline seats.

As the running water silenced, and Rachel’s tall and thin shadow approached the bed, Miles felt a twinge of apprehension. This was their future, her coming to bed and he waiting patiently like an expectant husband. The reality of her choice had begun to sink in but so did other discoveries. He could wake up next to her, hold her hand in public, kiss her everyday. They wouldn’t be confined to the shadows, to stolen moments, abbreviated trysts, when he yearned to make all of his life hers.

The mattress sunk next to him.

He felt the urge to roll over, and he did, gently laying his head on her breast and staring up at her.

“What?” she asked, a half-smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“Thank you.”

Her hand went to his head and her fingers began to methodically circle through his hair. He let her pet him for a few moments before reaching up to capture her hand in his, bringing it to his mouth to lay a gentle kiss there.

Rachel leaned down to press her lips against his, golden hair falling in a soft curtain along his cheek.

Miles squirmed upright so he could deepen the kiss, pushing her gently against the headboard. She tasted odd; her mouth was minty from toothpaste, but beneath it he could just faintly taste the sweet vanilla milkshake.

Back pressed against the wood, Rachel let him plant himself between her legs, his hands lost in the blonde mess. She let her legs wrap tightly around him, closing the distance even more. Eventually they had to pull away for air, but she smiled as his forehead remained square against hers.

Most of her face was out of focus, but he heard her voice, melodic although soft and unsure, and felt her breath tickle his nose.

“Can we do this?”

A quip floated across his tongue, about it had been months and how tonight he was definitely going to be able to do it, but he swallowed the words as he felt his heart rise into his throat. They could not live on passion alone. The truth was that he did not know.

But she had waited, and he had returned. They could at least try again.

Miles tenderly cupped her face with his hands, Rachel’s own hand covering his and her other arm snaking around his waist. Her skin was smooth under his fingers, every pore and blemish defined in the warm lamp light of the bedroom.

His eyes couldn’t quite make it to hers.

“I love you.” She said it so easily, so naturally, and she had proven it too.

It was his turn.

Miles knew that being this close and this open, the simplest turn would make his eyes burn and the tears fall and that was hardly the proper beginning to their first night back.

“I can’t—I’m not—” He faltered. “I’m not my brother. He does stable and I do—”

“Stop thinking, Miles,” she directed, her hand wrapping tighter around his, “Stop thinking about me.”

She stole another kiss, her tongue skating along his lip.

“I’m happy. I’ve made my choice.” The smile was back, white appearing beneath soft pink. “You’re the oaf who needs to let me know how you feel about this.”

“I feel like—” He didn’t deserve this, a voice in his head told him. “I feel lost.”

He felt her nod in agreement. She shifted forward to squeeze him closer to her, her head falling onto his shoulder.

“I’m lost with you, okay?” she whispered to him.

“Okay.”

He exhaled into her hair, the tension slowly dissipating as he relaxed into her.

“Miles?” he heard her mumble after a moment, “Can we have sex now?”

Finally, he was able to smile.

“Hell yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, I did not have the energy or talent to fic teh smexy times.


End file.
